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List of World War II References in Halo
World War II, or abbreviated as WWII '''or '''WW2, was an international human conflict that occurred on Earth between 1939 and 1945. History World War II was the second global military conflict in human history. It was fought between the Axis powers and the Allies. The war started in 1939 (this date is somewhat disputed - the Japanese had been fighting the Chinese sporadically since 1931, and an all-out war began in 1937) when Adolf Hitler, Führer of Nazi Germany, invaded Poland. Britain and France had allying pacts with Poland, and so both nations declared war on Nazi Germany. However, in 1940, during a disastrous retreat of the French 9th army from the Ardennes forest region, Army Group A broke into France, and the resulting blitzkrieg offensive quickly overtook the rest of the defenders. The Axis immediately headed Northward to surround Allied forces. The BEF (British expeditionary force) as well as the French army, retreated to a small pocket around Calais and Dunkirk. The slowly shrinking pocket was evacuated by a Royal Navy force of 'Little ships', and around 338,000 men were evacuated. In 1941, three German army Groups (South, Centre and North) numbering 3,900,000 men and 3,600 tanks, rolled over Soviet controlled territory and began an offensive toward Moscow in what would become the largest, bloodiest, and most brutal theater of war in all of human history up to that point. The Red Army, depsite outnumbering the Germans massively, suffered incredible losses and was forced back into Russia, and by the winter of 1941, the Germans had reached the suburbs of Moscow. Meanwhile, in December 1941, a Japanese carrier task force began a huge aerial assault on the US naval base of Pearl Harbor. They sunk or seriously damaged 21 ships, including 8 battleships, and brought the USA onto the Allied side of the war. The Japanese at the same time began attacking British, French, and Dutch colonies, American territories, and Australia. Late 1942 into early 1943 saw the turn of the tide, when British general Bernard Law Montgomery finally blunted the offensive of German Field Marshall Erwin Rommell's Afrika Corps at El Aleiman, Egypt. The Germans retreated with the British tanks in hot pursuit. Eventually, the Germans were squeezed out of North Africa after being trapped between the British and the newly arrived American forces to the west. At the same time as El Aleiman, the German offensive into Russia was stopped in its tracks when the entirety of the German 6th and 4th Panzer armies were eliminated at the largest single battle in human history (again, to that point) in and around the city of Stalingrad. This defeat cost the Germans the initiative in Russia and marked the beginning of the Red Army's long, brutal 2 and a half year drive to Berlin. Later in 1943, US and British troops began the attack on Italy, who folded quickly, dethroned dictator Benito Mussolini and actually sided with the Allies for a brief period before being easily disarmed by the vastly superior German army. The Germans then took up their defensive positions and would resist the Allied advance on the Peninsula until the end of the war. In early June 1944, 156,000 American, British Commonwealth, Canadian, Free French, and Polish troops landed on 5 separate beaches (west to east: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, Sword) and dropped into three separate landing zones in Normandy. Although the beachheads and much of the surrounding area fell within the first day, the Americans found themselves bogged down in the thick, labyrinthine hedgegrows of Normandy, and the British and Canadians were simultaneously unable to break through the German lines in and around the city of Caen to the north. Although the Germans held the line for weeks, the incredible weight of the Allied numbers, might, technology, and complete air supremacy began to take its toll. By mid-July, the German position, suffering both from unstoppable Allied arial and ground offensives and horrifically inept leadership in Berlin, collapsed, giving the Allies a free shot across France, through Paris, and all the way to the Seigfried line which bordered Germany itself. Less than a month later, the Soviets dealt the Germans an even more crippling defeat in Belorussia when virtually all of the German Army Group Centre was obliterated during Operation Bagration, sealing the German's fate in the east. Although the war would continue for almost another year, the back of the once-mighty Wehrmacht had been broken. In the Pacific, where American forces were 'island hopping' their way to Japan, they had successfully captured the Philippines, as well as New Guinea, Rabaul, the Solomon Islands, the Marianas, and were moving to attack Iwo Jima. The British had also began a large offensive in Burma, and were pushing the Japanese back into China. In April 1945, after beating back the German forces through occupied Soviet territory and Eastern Europe, the Red Army surrounded and attacked the German capital of Berlin. Hitler committed suicide, and he appointed Admiral Karl Donitz to be his successor. Even after the Soviets captured Berlin on May 2, Donitz continued the war to give the remaining German troops time to escape westward to surrender to the Americans and the British, with whom they had a much better chance of survival and humane treatment than they would have with the Russians. Finally, on May 7, Germany surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, effectively ending the war in Europe (the ceremony was repeated the following day fo appease the Soviets, who were not present at the first signing). In the Pacific, the Americans had managed to take control of Iwo Jima, at a heavy cost. It was one of the few instances where American casualties exceeded the Japanese, 22,000 men were killed or wounded. The Americans would then attack Okinawa, the last island needed for an invasion of Japan. The Japanese Navy, now reduced to a tiny force, launched kamikaze suicide aircraft at the US invasion fleet. US generals knew that an invasion of Japan would be a costly enterprise. The defenders would attack with such fanaticism that US casualties were expected to exceed 1,000,000 men and Japanese casualties were expected to be in the tens of millions, with the nation's infrastructure almost totally destroyed. The planned invasion would land millions of Allied soldiers onto the Japanese islands, which would have made it the largest ever attempted naval invasion, dwarfing Operation Overlord, the invasion of Normandy, but it never happened. Two B-29 Superfortresses took off from their bases in the Marianas and dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima on August 6 and three days later on Nagasaki. Simultaneously, the Red Army launched a massive invasion of northern Manchuria, obliterating several large Japanese armies in the span of a few hours. Several days later, the Japanese formally surrendered aboard the battleship, USS Missouri. '' The war formally ended on September 2, 1945, six years and one day after war was declared. By the end, 78,000,000 people had died, most of them civilians. The United Nations As a result of the Allied victory (the United States of America, Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and others) over the Axis Nations (Nazi Germany, Italy, Japan and others), the United Nations Charter was signed on June 26, 1945, marking the replacement of the defunct ''League of Nations and the creation of the United Nations. The United Nations Organization was formed with a goal of international peacekeeping by means of collective security. Types of Ammunition still in use in the Human-Covenant War *.30 caliber (7.62x51mm) primarily used for the MA5 Series and the Confetti Maker. This ammunition is also used with the AIE-486H Heavy Machine Gun, M247 General Purpose Machine Gun, and the M247H Heavy Machine Gun. *12.7x99mm. Used in the M41 LAAG *14.5x114mm (SRS99 series) *90mm gun (M808B Main Battle Tank) Trivia Miscellaneous *The paratroopers dropped behind enemy lines on D-Day and during Operation Market Garden inspired the UNSC's ODSTs, although the concept had to be rethought for Zero-G. *It may be possible that the concept for the Brute Spike Grenade was inspired by a German hand grenade known as the "the Potato Masher" or more specifically the "Stielhandgranate". References in Halo * Colonel Herzog apparently researched World War II extensively.I Love Bees http://transmit.ilovebees.com/surveillance_archive/week4_subject5.wav *The war has been analyzed in comparison to the Human-Covenant war.Halo Graphic Novel *The Maginot Sphere mentioned by the Forerunner in the Terminals is inspired by the Maginot Line, the French defensive fortifications along the Franco-German border stretching from the Ardennes to the Franco-Swiss border before the war. *John Forge's family has had a military tradition dating back to this time. *In Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversarys first terminal, 343 Guilty Spark found an image of the Normandy invasion. List of appearances *''Halo Legends'' **''Origins'' Sources Related Pages *United Nations *UN Charter Category:Wars Category:Battle Category:Human Category:Halo Legends Category:Halo Wars Category:The Real World